FISA Fallacies (Bush's unconstitutional critics)

National Review ^ | 01-03-06 | Rich Lowry - Commentary

[loboinok]

I'm sure there is an exception to the "U.S. citizen" clause, in cases such as this... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1547725/posts

[HiJinx]

there is no reason to "keep the existence of the program secret."

Actually, there is. Do you remember the uproar from the intelligence community when President Carter showed satellite imagery in a press conference? As a result, certain Foreign Powers took steps to protect their assets from detection by satellite imagery...

[smoothsailing]

Exactly. The court has no Army.

[mrsmith]

Executive orders are "direction and guidance" for the departments. They interpret the laws and make it clear what is expected by the president in their execution.

They are not law in any way. Laws can only be made by the legislature (someone inform the courts of this one day please!).

[mnehring]

You are right, law is not the right word to use here, although they are legally binding. We need to be careful less everyone with any power create laws..

[mnehring]

I'm sure there is an exception to the "U.S. citizen" clause

Subsection 1802 of FISA defines who a protected US Citizen is and isn't.. it clearly states anyone under the control of a foreign power, taking part in foreign intelligence, or a terrorist is not defined as a protected citizen under FISA.

[r-q-tek86]

ping

[loboinok]

exactly!

[HawaiianGecko]

 

1. The president has the right
2. His actions do violate FISA

You've nailed it perfectly. He did violate FISA, however, FISA violates the constitution. Congress just can't run around and willy-nilly change the constitution.

They claim that they wrote this law specifically to thwart the power of the executive and that simply is unconstitutional.

Congress has this silly tendency to think that every time they pass a law they have amended the constitution. I'm ready for this debate when these clowns come back to Washington.

[Cboldt]

[If the current NSA activity is clearly withing FISA] there is no reason to "keep the existence of the program secret."

Actually, there is. Do you remember the uproar from the intelligence community when President Carter showed satellite imagery in a press conference? As a result, certain Foreign Powers took steps to protect their assets from detection by satellite imagery...

Not clearly - but that example points out the loss of data due to disclosing a specific capability, rather than loss of data due to disclosing policy.

My point was that the existence of surveillance within the policy confines of FISA need not be kept secret - in fact it isn't secret. But President Bush seemed to object to the disclosure of a surveillance policy on national security grounds. That's a signal that the surveillance is outside of the policy boundary of FISA.

None of the NYT article described HOW the intercepts take place, or where, etc., nor does the content of the articles facilitate a determination of the technical interception capability. Carter's photo, OTOH, caused somebody to learn about a technical capability that they didn't know we had.